Lika Mutal

Lika Mutal (12 September 1939 – 7 November 2016) was a Dutch-Peruvian sculptor whose career began in 1971. Mutal is well known for her hand carved stonework, which focuses on the interconnectedness of the human and non-human world. The idea of duality is an omnipresent theme in Mutal’s life, as she is of European heritage, but she lives part-time in the ancient landscape of Lima, Peru and part-time in the modern architecture of New York City. Duality manifests in her work as she juxtaposes rough, jagged edges with smooth, polished surfaces, as well as with the physical structure of the work, which has each of the pieces typically as some element that links two independent pieces. Most impressive about her work- is Mutal’s ability to give a sort of dynamism to the inherently static substance of stone. Mutal’s work is well represented globally, and her practice is based out of Norha Haime Gallery in New York City.

Early life and education Lika Mutal was born in the Netherlands in 1939. Her mother was an accomplished pianist and singer, and her father was an oil painter. Mutal was the third child of twelve, and the first girl born in the family. Though her father influenced her love for the arts, Mutal never learned the visual arts, and in fact, she found her father's black and white paintings boring. From a young age, Mutal wished to become an actress. She acted in the cabaret in the Netherlands, and attended Bonifacius College in Utrecht. As she became more skilled, she sought out the traditional theatre school. However, she never attended because she had met the man who would later become her husband. Before removing the stone, Mutal performs rituals taught to her by Incan shamans, which include burnt offerings and sprinkling the ground with wine, asking the Earth for permission. After the stone is in her studio, she spends time analyzing it for its external and internal properties. It is for this reason that she is known for living a stone untouched in her studio for years before she actually makes the first mark. It is this enhanced awareness of the stone and the intricacy of which she works, that forces her to work by hand rather than with stone-cutting machinery.

In addition to being influenced by Mutal’s personal relationship with the stone, some work is inspired by the quipus, a pre-Columbian tool used for recording and mathematics, which has never been deciphered. This simple, inherent mystery revolving the quipus inspired much of Mutal’s early, smaller-scale work, which has been praised for having a fibrous fluidity. In addition to the Quipus series, Mutal explored the dual theme of independent interconnectedness through her Ones series. This series speaks to the interconnectedness between human life and nature by linking two horizontal beams in such a way that they could still move independently. This work is especially inspired by Peru’s unique landscape. One aspect of the Peruvian landscape that inspires Mutal is the unexpected duality found in “the confrontation with life and death; beautiful beaches, but carcasses of animals on the beach… at first big and empty, but then charged with subtle energy. Driving on the tiny ribbon that is the road, on one hand, the ocean and the desert, and on the other, the strong presence of many colored mountains.” The concept of independent-interconnectedness in Lika Mutal’s work evolved through the series of work referred to as the Labyrinths. The Labyrinths are more architectural than the previous work, which is directly correlated with living part-time in New York City, and they serve as the point in her career at which she began to work on a larger scale, in order to connect her entire body with her practice. In addition to transitioning to large-scale work, Lika Mutal also began the transition into working with granite.

Lika Mutal has also been awarded the Royal Ueno Museum Prize in 1994, and an Excellent Maquette Prize in 1992, from the Fujisankei Biennale, founded in Japan, as well as the First Sculpture Prize from the Universidad Catolica in 1970.